


Der Yingl fun Erd un Blitz (The Boy of Earth and Lightning)

by sofonisba_found



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Hale Fire, Canonical Character Death, Folklore, M/M, POV Multiple, Pining, Romance, Teen Wolf ReverseBang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-01-09
Packaged: 2017-11-23 23:14:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/627580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sofonisba_found/pseuds/sofonisba_found
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miriam and John Stilinski had always wanted to have children. But when her illness prevented her from giving birth, and every conventional alternative option to raise a child was denied to them, they had to look for an...unconventional method. One that would give them a child that was himself far from ordinary in so many ways.</p>
<p>And soon after, in the town of Beacon Hills, a young werewolf named Derek begins to notice the scent of something different from anything he had ever known before in the air...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Past and Mother

**Author's Note:**

> Posting for real this time after a draft snafu a few days ago! How embarrassing… 
> 
> In any case, I do wish to warn once again about the canonical death if you just skimmed through the tags. There is a scene with someone suffering from/succumbing to cancer. It does not go into graphic detail, but even so, if you think that something of that nature may upset you even in the slightest, please proceed with caution. 
> 
> On a lighter note, this was beta'd by the supremely lovely eak_a_mouse, and inspired by art created by the glorious tipitina.  
> Written for the Teen Wolf Reverse Bang. (If any of these links don't work let me know. I have an anti tech gift.)

**_Past_** __

_We’re very sorry to tell you this Mrs. Stilins- Miriam… but you have uterine cancer. It’s actually fairly uncommon for someone your age. But be that as it may, I’m still afraid that at this stage, for you to even have a chance at survival you’ll have to have a hysterectomy…_

_It looks like the cancer has metastasized, but we’re confident that with some aggressive chemotherapy and radiation we can add years to your life, good years…_

_We’re very sorry, but after reviewing your case file, I’m afraid we cannot proceed any further. Normally a couple as caring as you two would be ideal candidates for adoption, but the combination of having one parent with ongoing health concerns, and another in such a high risk career as law enforcement, I’m afraid that in good conscience that we cannot place a child with you. The odds of something happening to one or both of you is just too high. You can try other agencies of course, but in all likelihood they will tell you the same thing…_

_Well, while surrogacy is a wonderful new option to childless couples such as yourselves, it is rather costly, both in medical fees for the fertilization, the pre and post natal care as well as compensation for the surrogate. From what you’ve shown me of your finances it may be better for you two to wait a few years to really explore if surrogacy is right for your family. After all, it’s not your own biological clock that you have to worry about…_

_I want to have a child John._

_I don’t care what they say._

_I don’t want to leave you alone._

_I have these books my grandmother left me…and she would tell me stories, stories about something that happened once in Prague._

_But if we can change the method, blend it with another spell, another legend, something…we could have a real child. A breathing, thinking, loving, growing, living child. Will you try this for me John?_

_Of course. We’ll have one. You and me. One that will give us back all the love and happiness that we have to give. One that will one day give that love to someone else, someone lucky enough to be the beneficiary of all that we have, all our love and effort wrapped into our child._

_We’ll make a beautiful child._

_He’ll light up the world._

**Mother**

**_Conception_**

Miriam dipped her hands into the container of clay, and once more she thought about how unfair the world was. 

“It’s not right John. That awful woman at the art supply store, yelling and cursing at her child just for asking if she could have a silk rose. I swear, the only thing holding me back from hitting her was the fact that you drove us over in the cruiser,” she said, adding more clay onto the block in front of her, slowly forming and shaping it into the rough shape of a small child. 

“I know,” said John, carefully turning the pages of an old book in an unfamiliar tongue laid out on a beat up music stand they were using for lack of a podium, while also looking at a translation book and various print outs laid out on the desk beside it. “It’s not right. And I wish to god I could have done something. But we’ll be better.” 

“Of course we will. Our child will know nothing but love, so that even when I’m gone-”Miriam said fiercely, though tears were trickling down her cheeks. 

“Please…Please don’t say things like that, just because those idiots said,” John interrupted, rushing over to his wife and embracing her from behind, inhaling the scent of her hair, that though short, was finally growing in once again. “Please just…Focus on this. Focus on our child.” 

“Alright,” Miriam said, turning to kiss John briefly on the mouth. “It’s time now, to add it in, before I start to shape the details. The books said that it would actually help the sculpting go smoother. That having the blood, the life essence there, would help shape everything to what it would have been were things done in the natural way.” 

“Ok,” said John, walking over to pick up a knife from the desk holding the additional texts, the blade glinting in the candlelight. “Should I go first or should you?” he asked. 

“I don’t think it really matters,” Miriam answered, filled with both exhilaration and trepidation now that they were actually doing this. Now that it wasn’t just a crazy fantasy. 

They were going to create a child together. 

“Ok,” John said once again, and then sliced the blade of the knife along his palm, letting the blood drip onto the little clay figure below. Miriam took the knife from him and did the same. She then set the knife down and they both clasped bleeding hands and let the blood continue to rain down onto the clay, where it never settled on the surface, instead being absorbed in immediately, tinting the clay as it spread throughout, even to the very tips of the extremities far from where the blood had fallen. 

Miriam looked down at the small form on the block and felt an intense joy sweep through her body. 

“We’re going to have a little boy.” 

  


**_Birth_**

“Are you sure I can’t help?” John asked again as Miriam awkwardly cradled the unmoving clay form in her arms, now finely sculpted into a little boy and wrapped in a blanket, small and sweet faced in the way that all children were. There were hints of John and Miriam showing through here and there, and a smattering of moles and freckles scattered all over his body that Miriam had added without realizing it, almost as if parts of the sculpt had been taken from her hands and left up to the blood and clay. They had chosen to make him about three years old, as they didn’t know how much time Miriam would have left, and as much as they would have loved to start from an infant and experience every little joy and stress that parenting could offer, they decided that if they started him off a little older he’d be able to participate in more of life with the two of them. Instead of sleepless nights and exasperation washed over with love they could go right to pushing him on swing sets and teaching him to climb, rainy days spent inside finger painting and baking where more flour would end up on them than in the bowl. 

They would all of them have, and make, memories of each other as a family of three for as long as they could. 

“It would be alright if I just helped you carry him there, wouldn’t it? He’s so heavy like this, and you’re still not as strong as you used to be…” 

“It has to be just me from this point on John. At a certain point things become the mother’s burden alone. That’s the way it is in nature, and the way it has to be now.” 

“Alright. Alright, just… be careful out there. Please, just be careful,” he said, kissing first his wife, then the earthen child on their respective brows. 

“I will. We’ll back soon,” she said with a sure nod, and went out the door into the Arizona night, thunder rumbling in the distance. 

It had to be soon. 

She walked away from the trailer they had rented into the desert, walked for about a mile before she came to the rock formation she and John had found during their search earlier in the week. She unwrapped the clay child from the blanket and laid it out on the flat surface of the rock. She kissed the clay brow, as her husband had before, and backed away as the lightning, closer than before but still not there yet, crackled through the dry air. 

She walked further from the rock until she felt she was far enough away for safety’s sake, then stopped and knelt on the ground, her attention split between the approaching lightning and the child on the rock. 

Jagged zigzags of electricity pierced the night sky, coming closer and closer to where Miriam had left the prone form. She folded her hands and began to whisper quietly to herself, not really a proper prayer, all the real incantations had been said earlier by John as she shaped the damp clay into their child, but she still felt she had to say something, anything, in case that little bit extra might help. 

“Please let this work. Please let this work, oh please, oh please, oh please…” 

Finally the storm was right above them. Miriam felt her hair stand on end from the residual static charge in the air as a flash of light illuminated the entire night sky, and a shot of lightning arced down to the figure on the rock making it jolt with the force and current. 

Miriam didn’t dare move as the as the storm continued its path across the desert. She locked her eyes on the rock and continued to chant softly. 

“Oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please…” 

Suddenly the form on the rock moved. 

Just a small turn of the head, the clenching and unclenching of a tiny fist, but… 

Miriam raced forward and scooped the no longer clay, now flesh and blood _boy_ into her arms. He squirmed against her and she moved back far enough to look him in the face. His eyes opened, at first glowing like the lightning that had passed through him, before fading to a golden brown. 

Just like hers. 

“Oh my baby, my beautiful baby,” she murmured. “Mama is here, Mama has you…” 

The little boy reached out with a clumsy hand to touch her face and spoke, his voice unsure but still pure and clear. 

“Mama?” 

Miriam felt like she would never stop smiling even as tears poured down her face. 

“That’s right. Now let’s take you back to see your daddy, alright?” 

The little boy’s eyes sparked and lit up once more as his face broke out in a smile to match his mother’s. 

  


**_Family_**

John knew where to look to find someone to forge documents for their boy that would pass even the most intense of scrutiny while Miriam had searched the internet for a new place for them to go, a new start for their new family. They moved to a small town in northern California called Beacon Hills, where no one knew them and no one would wonder how they suddenly had a toddler when they hadn’t had one two weeks ago. 

There were positions open at the sheriff’s station after a rash of old timers retired, and they bought a house sight unseen from an ecstatic realtor over the phone. It needed some work, but both John and Miriam were pretty handy, and it was only mid September so if they prioritized properly the most important things would be done by the time winter came. Miriam would do some of the smaller things when she was alone during the day with their son, because after all they had gone through, it really wasn’t even a question if Miriam would try to look for work until he was in elementary school. 

They named him after Miriam’s late father according to tradition, but he almost never answered to it. 

“I don’ like it. It’s too hard to say and when people ask and I can’t say it they think I’m dumb,” he said sulkily as he played with his teddy bear that he had named simply ‘Bear’. 

“No one thinks anything like that sweetheart. If anything you can talk better then a lot of kids your age,” said Miriam as she set out a snack of sliced apples and honey. 

“’Cause I’m not really their age,” he said trying to feed an apple slice to his bear, thankfully sans honey. “I‘m special.” 

“Sweetie, I don’t think Bear is hungry for apples right now,” Miriam said with a smile. 

“Ok.” 

“But when you’re asked, you do say you’re three, don’t you?” Asked John from where he leaned against the kitchen counter, already dressed in his deputy’s uniform for his upcoming night shift. 

“Yes. I can say that but I can’t say my name. I don’ like it,” he said, dipping the apple into the honey and thankfully putting it into his own mouth this time. 

John looked over at Miriam and grinned. “I guess it’s just not his style Mir.” 

“Hmm, what is more your style then?” Miriam teasingly asked of her son. 

He looked up at her quizzically, bits of apple stuck to his little chin. He then held up his teddy bear to his ear and moved its head up and down like it was whispering to him. It was an odd little game that he had developed only hours after he had been given the bear, and though John and Miriam were relatively sure that they should start discouraging the behavior at some point, it was still far too endearing to them both for either to want to make an attempt any time soon. 

His face split into a wide smile and he proclaimed, “Stiles!” 

“Yes, we asked what your style was…” 

“It’s Stiles! Stiles Stilinski. That’s me. My style is Stiles like a Stilinski.” 

Miriam gave John a look over the top of their son’s head. Her husband was being relatively successful at holding back his laughter, but couldn’t keep an open mouthed smile completely off his face. He shrugged his shoulders and asked, “Hey, what can we do? He is a Stilinski after all.” 

“Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski. And this is Bear. Bear Stilinski. Stiles and Bear Stilinski. It sounds good, don’ it? Righ’ mommy, it sounds good?” Miriam smiled down at Stiles. 

“Whatever makes you happy Stiles.” 

Stiles clapped his hands and let out a cheer, his eyes glowing, while Miriam and John’s hair began to rise as a static charge filled the room. 

  


**_Neighborly_**

While researching how to get a child Miriam amassed a fairly substantial collection of books dealing with all things supernatural, from the almost absurdly childish fakeries, to other things that were very, very, real. 

She had been rather surprised though, to find any representatives of the supernatural persuasion in a relatively small and quiet town like Beacon Hills. 

It wasn’t much of anything that someone who hadn’t immersed themselves in arcane texts and folklore for over a year would have noticed. Just sound of wolves howling, when according to all reputable wildlife sources there were no wolf packs in the state of California. And though that could have been dismissed, the sight of a ten year old girl having a snit with her mother at the grocery store and her eyes glowing, not the bright electric crackle that sometimes shone out from Stiles’ eyes, but something else, could not be so easily brushed off. 

When faced with an unexpected wrinkle in what should have been an ideal existence with her family until her body turned against her once again, Miriam did the only thing she could think of. 

She invited Mrs. Hale out for coffee. 

All in all she found Mrs. Hale to be very charming, but she still felt no qualms about laying her cards out on the table. 

“I know about you and your family,” she said plainly as the werewolf sitting across from her at the café was dunking a biscotti into her latte. “I’m not saying that to threaten you, not at all, but I wanted you to know that I know, and that I won’t make trouble for your family if you don’t make any for mine.” 

Ayla Hale took a bite of her biscotti, washing it down with more coffee before she responded. “I knew there was something about your family, but I didn’t know what. Honestly I still don’t, because I seriously doubt your ability to identify us is the only exceptional thing about you. You’re not Hunters, that I can tell straight off, but your entire family smells of electricity. Especially your son.” 

Miriam looked Ayla straight in the eye, the very thought of looking away an impossibility. She needed to make things clear now. 

“Like I said earlier, none of us want any trouble. Your family keeps your secrets, and my family keeps ours. Fair enough?” 

“Fair enough,” Ayla said with a small nod, her eyes flashing in that manner so superficially similar, but ultimately completely alien in comparison to Stiles’. Miriam let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, and reached for her tea, feeling dizzy. 

“So long as we have our little understanding all ironed out,” Ayla continued, “would you care to meet up for coffee again sometime? It’s so hard to meet new people once you become a mother, especially after you manage to tick off the majority of the PTA by refusing to let the school organize camping outings on your property.” 

“Of course. Being new in town I would hardly know any of the best spots to eat yet, would I?” Miriam asked, raising her cup for a toast, an action that Ayla mirrored with a kind, and decidedly human, smile. 

  


**_Leaving_**

Things were very good for them in Beacon Hills, until of course, one day they weren’t. That was the day that Miriam went for her quarterly checkup and the doctor began to frown at the preliminary results she was seeing before ordering an MRI. Miriam knew, even as they scheduled the test, that this was going to be the beginning of the end. 

She told John immediately, but put off telling Stiles as long as she could. He was seven now, almost eight, and she wanted him to have as much of a happy childhood as possible. 

That was all that she ever wanted. 

Still, even without being told he sensed that something wasn’t right. He had always been whip smart, if a bit too easily excitable from the very start, so while they were able to keep the specifics from him, they couldn’t completely keep him in the dark that something was very wrong. So on days when she was too tired to get out of bed in time to send Stiles off to school, days that were becoming more frequent, he would come into her room and tuck his teddy bear, now a little worse for wear, next to her in the bed before he went to school so she wouldn’t feel lonely when she finally woke up and no one was in the house with her. 

She cried the first time she woke up next to it, her tears soaking into the brown and cream faux fur. 

And in the afternoons when Stiles came home from school, after telling his best friend Scott he’d come over and play another day, he would find her sitting in her favorite chair, having spent the day while Stiles was off at school writing down everything she could think of in her journal. Recipes, anecdotes, jokes, family history, how she and John made Stiles, written step by step in painstaking detail, so she would have something tangible to leave behind for Stiles. So that no matter what happened in his life he would never forget how much she loved him, what she had done to get him. 

But when he came into the room she would set aside her book and pen and let him crawl into her lap and hold her, before settling back and asking, always, the same thing every day, as if her answer would ever change. 

“Do you want me to? Do you want to see?” 

“Always. I always want to see it.” 

So Stiles would hold his hands apart, just a little bit at first, his forefingers extended, and create a little spark of electricity, jumping from one finger to the other like completing a circuit. Then he would let it gather and grow between his hands until it was a small crackling ball of light, illuminating Stiles’ face. He would let it grow larger, but never too large, just enough so that when Miriam looked into it she knew that it and nothing else could be seen in her eyes, that for at least a little while she and her son truly shared the same eyes. 

And when it was time to do homework, or eat dinner, or any of the normal everyday things that still had to be done even when one was unwell, Stiles would jump back and throw his hands up into the air. The ball would burst apart and transform into tiny lightning bolts and sparkles, leaping from his fingertips to light everything up once more before they harmlessly faded and flickered away. 

No matter what happened, how little time she had left, she couldn’t regret a moment of her life. She regretted what would come later, when Stiles and John would be left a duo when they had always been a trio. But seeing the electrical energy swirl around her son, both emanating from within and pulled from outside…She was filled with an intense joy. 

She knew that she was incredibly lucky to have been with her family as long as she had. To have had the time for what she and John had been able to create together; a real home, and the completeness both had always wanted. When every force in to world had told them they couldn’t raise a child together? _They had_. They had, and when it was time, she knew she would be at peace. After all, who else in the world could ever be blessed enough to see what she and her husband had? What they had to good fortune to see every day. 

To see her beautiful son spark so. 


	2. Lover

**Lover**

**_Scent_**

Derek would never have described himself as an overly curious kid by nature. He did well in school because he knew he had to work hard and get good grades or he would upset his parents, but didn’t feel any excitement in class solely for the sake of learning. Though to be fair, fourth grade really wasn’t all that interesting. He was slightly skeptical that being able to recite the Preamble and do long division by hand would come in handy later in life, but not enough so to rebel or even to try and find out why everything had to be learned by rote. It was what it was, and he had no problem waiting to see whether his teachers were misleading him or not, especially when half the time school hardly seemed to matter outside of human expectations and obligations. Why should it, when he was a werewolf and could just run through the woods after taking the smallest moment to shift? When he could be in the middle of nature, in the thick of all the things they could only look at in boring pictures and slides in class, when he could be out there and fit in better than he ever could in school? 

But just because it wasn’t a huge driving force in his life at school didn’t mean he was completely devoid of any curiosity. A new scent would catch his nose sometimes, especially when he was truly as a wolf, and he would eagerly follow it through the woods, over streams and brambles and tree stumps, but on the occasions where he didn’t ever find the source he wasn’t overly concerned. Sometimes you found the rabbit warren, or the empty alcohol bottles, or the two soon to traumatized teenagers making out, and sometimes you didn’t. The chase could be fun, but there was always another one coming soon enough if the first didn’t pan out. 

Until his mother came back from town one day smelling like something …something he had never smelled before. It wasn’t strong, like it had gotten on her in a more than second hand manner, but it was so distinct that he couldn’t help but notice it. It made his nose twitch as he tried to think of a way to describe it. 

“Where were you mom?” he asked, hoping that knowing where she had been would help him in placing the scent. 

“Just having some coffee at Lunn’s with a friend. You smelled the strawberry scones I picked up, didn’t you? Sorry, but you’re just going to wait until after dinner like the rest of the family,” his mother said, breezing past him to get to the kitchen. 

“But they taste better fresher,” he said, his standard response whenever his mom tried to make him wait on eating any baked goods or snacks she picked up, but he said it reflexively more than anything else. He hadn’t even noticed the strong and familiar aroma of the scones over the barest hint of the strange new scent that had attached to, and was fading from, his mother with every passing second. 

“Well, I might have picked up an extra few to be eaten sooner if a certain young man has finished his math homework. Your class started on long division this week, right?” 

“I’ll be done in half an hour,” Derek promised as he raced upstairs to do the homework he had been planning to put off until tomorrow morning, the promise of a snack overriding his curiosity regarding the new scent for the moment. 

After all, it couldn’t be all that important or even interesting. Probably his mom had just brushed up against some person who was unlucky enough to get ambushed by one of those perfume ladies at the mall that his family always went to extremes to give a wide berth to. That must be it. 

Even if it smelled nothing like any perfume he had come across before. 

Even if it seemed to call to him. 

Even if his mother almost seemed like she was being evasive. 

Whatever it was, it couldn’t possibly be anything important. 

  


**_Searching_**

The scent continued to sporadically pop up, clinging to his mother before always fading away, for some years to come. It always caught his attention immediately, confusing and intriguing as well as increasingly familiar, but still not identifiable, and always faint, as though it was never from whatever was the original source. And always dissipating underneath the other smells of home and pack and woods and food far too soon after his mother returned to the house. 

“Coffee with a friend,” was all that she would say when Derek asked where she had been, like it wasn’t anything unusual or of much importance, and it really wasn’t, but… 

Derek’s fairly latent sense of curiosity had most definitely been piqued. 

He began volunteering to go down into town with his mother to help her on errands, hoping that they would run into her friend and he would be one step closer to identifying whatever the actual origin of the smell was. But as many bags of groceries he had to carry, as long as he had to wait for his mother, whether it was at the mechanics, the hardware store, the craft store, the BoHo furniture boutique, the stationary store, or any of the other stores that he had zero interest ever going into again, he never came across the person who carried the scent enough to transfer it over to his mother. Sure, he met a lot of his mother’s acquaintances, many more than he cared to in all honesty, and while some of them had remnants of the scent on them the same way his mother had, none of them smelled strongly enough to be the friend his mother met up with, let alone the actual source. 

Until one day he came back from school, eighth grade finally holding his interest on its own merits without quite as much pressure from his parents, to find his mother wearing the same black dress and jacket she had worn when his great aunt Dora died. But more importantly, wrapped around her like a physical presence was the scent of electricity and earth, and not just common dirt, but instead closer to the very essence of earth itself. All of that as well as something else still indefinable. 

It was the most incredible thing he had ever smelled in his life. 

He was about to ask his mother what it was, where she had been, who or what she had touched to be so enveloped with the wonderful scent, when she looked up at him, the only partially erased evidence that she had been crying on her face. 

“Don’t ask me Derek. I know what you’ve been trying to find out, pretending to be interested in helping with my errands, but I can’t tell you. I made a promise, and I will not break it, especially not now. And you have to promise me now, that you’ll let it go. That you won’t try to hunt him down.” 

“I would never hurt…” Derek began, though in his mind he was running over what his mother had said; ‘she had said ‘him’, it belonged to a person, to a boy, someone who could be found… 

“Derek, please just promise me you won’t seek him out. Promise me.” 

“Alright,” said Derek, as his mother gave him a quick hug in thanks, the aroma for one brief moment closer and stronger than it had ever been before. All he wanted was to get closer to the person who had owned this scent, to be around them every day of his life. 

Derek knew in that moment, that though he would do his best to keep his word for now, one day he would have to break his promise. 

A part of him knew that when it came down to it, he really wouldn’t have much of a choice at all. 

  


**_Alterations_**

He still caught hints of the nameless boy’s scent throughout the town, but kept his word to his mother and did not seek him out, no matter how strongly the sharp tang of electricity and rich earth taunted him. At times it seemed to almost override or alter other scents and sensations with its uniqueness and intensity, even diluted by the air, people, cars, and all the other various bits of detritus that resulted from and constituted the makeup of any moderately sized town like Beacon Hills. It shouldn’t be like that, it didn’t make any sense why a smell, no matter how unique should have such an effect, but… 

But with the electric/earth scent constantly sneaking in and out of his awareness, certain foods would change in their appeal when the scent was there, mingling with what he had in front of him, apples smelling and tasting crisper and sweeter, curly fries that were normally utterly unappetizing to him suddenly making him salivate, Italian sausage becoming like sawdust in his mouth. 

Even certain people would seem more or less likable depending on whether or not the scent was around on any given day. 

Derek realized exactly how much influence the scent held over him when he met Kate Argent. 

When he first met her at the pool he thought he was in love. She was so much more beautiful and confident, so much wiser and more alluring compared to everyone else he knew. Through the chemical sting of chlorine he scented and sought her out, everything about her completely and utterly irresistible to each one of his senses. 

At least until their first clandestine date when they met up in town. It was just at a mediocre coffee shop where anyone could run into each other, but as he stepped outside a car drove by with the windows down, and it was almost like a current shot through him, singeing his nostrils and traveling straight down to his feet, rooting him to the ground. After a moment he managed to shake himself out of his stupor and was prepared to race after the car, so indistinct and formless to his mind, because who cared about boring old family cars carting around a couple of preteens? But just as he was about to go off after it, Kate exited the café and touched his arm. 

He took a breath as he turned toward her and had to fight down the urge to retch. When before she had smelled like the honeysuckle body wash she used on top of her natural healthiness and a slight but still alluring hint of sex, she now smelled repugnant, like charred and rotted flesh. She smiled and asked if he was alright, her grin looking more like that of a predator than any he had seen in his own family. 

He choked out a response that he forgotten that he had promised his mother he would be home soon and fled quickly, but not so fast as to miss the darkening of her gaze. It was a look that could have possibly, if one was generous with the interpretation, been some form of genuine disappointment at the loss of his company, though with what his nose was telling him, he sincerely doubted it. 

He met up with her out in the open one more time after that, to see if it could have possibly been a fluke. He wanted it to have been a mistake so much; Kate was beautiful, and paid attention to him, and he wanted to believe that someone like her could be attracted to him. 

But when he saw her again, even with the mystery boy’s electric scent nowhere around to influence his senses, she still smelled like death, and not her own. There was nothing left of what she had been before, save a tendril of honeysuckle that stood out almost mockingly amongst the stench of decay. 

He begged off from their date once again and went home, becoming more and more frantic the closer he got, until he was almost hysterical by the time his parents raced out of the house to meet him, sensing his distress. He told them about Kate, about his secret, and how he was sorry but there was something so very wrong with her. His parent’s exchanged a glance and promised him that everything would be alright. 

Two days later Kate and her family moved out of town in the dead of night, the promise of an all out war with every pack in the state of California enough to convince the Argents that, in addition to adhering to the Code, leaving town for a while might be in their best interests. 

After the Argent’s were gone, Derek’s mother came to him. 

“I think I know how you managed to suss out the truth about that girl. But you still cannot seek him out. I made a promise Derek.” 

“I know Mom. I know,” Derek said, still angry and scared at how he had almost been suckered in, and longing the find the electricity and earth boy, for once to thank him more than to satisfy his once sparked and still undimmed curiosity. 

  


**_Closer_**

Going away to college had been a pretty big change for Derek, as it was for all pack members. Being so far away from the bonds and security of the pack was trying for everyone who went away for any stretch on their own, but aside from just that, Derek missed the town of Beacon Hills. 

The very air everywhere else seemed thin and lacking in comparison. It was only in the prelude to a thunderstorm, when the air was charged but the rain had yet to fall did he feel truly at ease. 

But he finished his degree, a Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing in the normal amount of time, give or take a semester, and moved back home to work at the local hospital. It wasn’t something he had really planned on doing until his second semester in college, when he had realized he had the ability to smell sickness, with greater precision and accuracy than any other werewolf he knew, and with that he just felt…compelled to go into healthcare. 

And he liked it, and he was good at it, despite the initial ribbing from the bulk of the staff when he first started that he was only working there until his male modeling career took off. Under the tutelage of the other nurses he learned how to talk to patients to get them to ask for the right tests when he knew what was wrong and no one else could see, without actually telling them to do anything, as well as how to game the doctor’s into thinking the additional tests were their idea. 

A good portion of the nurses started to take Derek under their wing, looking at him as part surrogate son and part eye candy. His favorite of all his coworkers was actually the woman his Uncle Peter was currently dating. Derek liked her for a lot of the same reasons his uncle did, though to different ends of course. She was kind and competent, had a wicked sense of humor and was not afraid to lay down the law on anyone who tried to mess around. But on top of all that there was one reason Derek enjoyed spending time around her that his uncle didn’t have. 

Melissa McCall knew the boy whose scent had haunted Derek for years. And she knew him well, his scent on certain days so close and mixed in with her own that he knew she must see him incredibly frequently, and not in passing. 

Derek tried to cling to the promise he had made his mother not to look for the boy, but he could feel his grasp on it slipping away with every shift or coffee break shared with Melissa. Every conversation about her life, while genuine at their core as Derek did honestly like her, shredded the promise he had made years ago further and further as he found out more about the people who surrounded her. How could he not try to deduce who it was when she was sharing everything so freely? 

Though Derek could have done without the rundown of her and Peter’s dates. 

But the stories about her neighbors, her friends, her son and his friends…after his shift was finished and he had gone home, after dinner with his family and going for a night run, wild and free as he should be, in air that felt right, he would lay awake in bed at night and run over everyone she had talked about. Could it be the middle schooler across the street? Her friend Gina’s kid who goes to the community college? Her son Scott’s best friend with the weird name and an apparent penchant for talking his friend into things that only led to trouble, but who, according to Melissa, would also take the time to make flashcards on every subject so that he and Scott could study together in order to ensure that they were always in the same classes together? 

He resisted the urge to drive his car to Melissa’s street, to the college and the high school. For now he just listened and wondered who it could be, and why they smelled the way they did, a way that had changed Derek’s life, maybe even protected Derek’s family, without them having even met. 

And sometimes before sleep overtook him he would wonder if he wanted it to be anyone of them in particular, or if that really mattered, that all he needed was to know. But even as he tried to ignore the possibility that his fixation ran so much deeper than he could ever openly admit, he suspected that it was just so. 

In his last moments of wakefulness his mind tended to drift toward Scott’s friend, Stiles or something like that, as his favorite option. 

If nothing else, he sounded interesting. 

  


**_Found_**

While in college Derek had developed the habit of going for a run whenever a storm was set to roll in. Even if the odds were against him and he was struck by lightning, it’s not as if it would really do any permanent damage. And when he was out there running, with ozone and electricity in the air, everything was intensified to such incredible extremes, every sight and scent and feeling, so much so that he felt he was surrounded by super pure and charged _life_ itself. 

And, like he was closer to the stranger, the one who it seemed like had always been at the periphery of his life. Like he was that much nearer, waiting for Derek to… 

Derek still hadn’t completely settled within his head what exactly he would do when he met him. He tried not to, as attempting to plan out anything about their potential meeting felt even more like a prelude to breaking his vow than his conversations with Melissa. At least with her he, not to mention certain other family members, was genuinely interested in her life and well being, but fantasizing how a first encounter would go was all on Derek. 

Even though he had just finished working a double at the hospital, the crackle in the afternoon air was promising a storm that made him feel like going on a run. And though he usually preferred to shift into a wolf and run all out and naturally when it was safe enough to do so, on this day he felt he needed to stretch out his human muscles after all the achy abuse they had suffered from being on his feet all day. 

He changed from his scrubs into shorts and a tank, slid on his running shoes, and was out the door. He set a fairly leisurely pace compared to how he normally pushed himself, out into the woods of Beacon Hills as the sky darkened overhead. 

He ran through the woods, at first staying for the most part on the actual paths before the urge to re-explore his territory came upon him with the frisson of electricity in the air, and he set off away from the trail, toward where the tree line thinned and the ground grew craggy. 

Soon enough though he had to stop, to shake his head and blink his eyes to ensure that his vision wasn’t just playing tricks on him. 

Up ahead, over the rise of the hill, the lightning was dancing. 

It wasn’t just that there were more lightning bolts than there should be. They were all moving in a completely unnatural, but profoundly beautiful way, as if they were dancers in a choreographed ballet. He had thought he had seen glimpses of something like this a few times since he had moved back home but had always dismissed it as his eyes playing tricks on him, momentarily manifesting something that would lead him to his…lead him to… 

Because there was no mistaking that this was very real, and who was the cause. Derek bade goodbye to his promise to his mother as he made his way closer to who must be the choreographer of this spectacle. 

The boy who smelled of charged earth, who had protected his family without even knowing he had done so, the one Derek couldn’t stop thinking about. 

For the first time in his life, Derek finally laid eyes on him, and was completely transfixed. 

He walked closer to Stiles, it _must_ be Stiles, because even though he had never seen so much as a picture, he knew that this had to be him based on Melissa’s descriptions. He was about Derek’s height, give or take an inch, but not as broad, his body probably well fleshed out for a teenager but partially obscured by oversized clothes that moved with the elemental forces surrounding him. His hair was shorn close to his head, and as Derek crept closer he could see a smattering of moles and freckles across his face as well as on what other small peeks of skin he could see. His exposed wrist and forearms flickered in and out of view as he moved his arms to control the lightning’s movement, his long fingers flexing to bend the lightning to his will. 

He was the most breathtaking person Derek had ever seen in his life. Derek realized abruptly that if he hadn’t been in love with him before, when he was just a scent, just a vague idea of some person with a special spark, somehow omnipresent and unforgettable even having been unseen until this moment, he sure as hell was now. 

He wanted Stiles to look at him, to speak to him, to reach out and touch him with those hands bathed in the glow of the lightning, and for him to understand how very _patient_ Derek had been, keeping his promise, waiting for them to finally meet. He called out, hesitantly, but being sure to project enough to be heard over the rush of energy circling around the hill. 

“Hi.” 

Stiles spun around to face him, the shafts of lightning dissipating, though his eyes retained a glow that reminded Derek at least a little bit of his own kind, before fading back to a more human, but still utterly entrancing whiskey brown. There was magic there. 

He waited eagerly to hear Stiles’ voice, to now be able to attach everything, a name, a face, and a voice to the scent that had been with him for so long. Stiles’ mouth opened and closed a few times like a fish gasping for air, a look that Derek probably would have found comical, except for the fact that Stiles was backing away from him. 

“Oh hell,” he said, allowing Derek only a moment to try to take in his voice before he completely turned tail and ran, leaving Derek still stunned where he stood, as the rain finally began to pour. 

Derek turned slowly and began to walk back to the house, aware that giving in to the urge to give chase right now, to pin him down and lick his throat would do him no favors. But he couldn’t help but smile even as the water soaked him completely through. Because now that pure luck had decided to take him this far, there was no way he was going to let the chance to have Stiles in his life- not just in wisps carried along the breeze, but for real and forever- slip away. 


	3. Spark and Future

**Spark**

**_Belonging_**

From the start Stiles knew the circumstances of his ‘birth’ were a little outside the norm, even in these currently heady times of in vitro fertilization, surrogates, and things like that. And it would be a lie if he said he never wondered if that made him different from everyone else somehow, outside of the whole obvious lightning thing. People other than his parents, and later Scott, frequently seemed at a loss for how to handle him, let alone even come within spitting distance of understanding him. 

But he still loved his parents with all his being from the moment he came into awareness. He still fought back tears when his classmates started calling him a weirdo, still felt like his heart actually grew when Scott declared them best friends for the first time, and still finally lost the fight to hold back his tears when his mother died, he and his father clutching onto each other like lifelines. 

So maybe the whole ‘not of woman born’ thing, coupled with the ability to control electricity thing didn’t really play that much into his actual everyday life, and he was just a regular boy who just didn’t quite fit in. It happened all the time to people everywhere, and the other poor schmucks couldn’t even give anyone who hassled them static shocks at will. That didn’t mean that he still didn’t feel incredibly lost sometimes. And once he started feeling that way, even just a little bit, he would get down on himself even more until a big enough distraction came along to snap him out of it for a while. Despite his father telling him that everything he felt was normal, that he was just as he should be, he still felt like he should be…better. After all, he wasn’t some random combination of DNA, dominant and recessive genes jockeying and taking turns to make up every aspect of his being. He was created with _intent_ , and it just felt like that should mean something. That he should be this perfect kid who never caused his parents any trouble, no matter how much excess energy he had all the time, someone who was a star, able to make everyone proud of him. 

That he should be someone who could do more than put on pretty little light shows while his mother drifted away right in front of his and his father’s eyes. She had said that they made her happy, that they helped take the pain away, but… 

She was still gone. 

He wanted to know why, why if he was so special, why couldn’t he do anything useful with all that vaunted specialness? Why couldn’t he help anyone in a way that really mattered? 

Because while giving certain lacrosse players with more ego than was really healthy for anyone a shock every now and then when they picked on those students on the lower popularity tiers could be fun, a _lot_ of fun, it didn’t change anything really. Although, he supposed that theoretically enough shocks might eventually give some of them a classically conditioned aversion to being a bully. He would never have shocked Pavlov’s dogs, but Jackson didn’t have cute floppy ears, so that was alright. The fact was, that while lightning powers were badass in the comics, unless one was actually fighting crime against people who weren’t likely to die if struck, they were actually only really good for a couple of still practical but much more mundane things, like sparking to light a campfire when the matches were damp or a candle in a blackout. Or in an emergency he could maybe try to jumpstart someone’s heart, though the risk of roasting someone was too high to even think about trying it, unless it was a total last ditch effort. 

Or make the lightning dance to make someone happy. 

As he had gotten older Stiles felt his connection to the electricity all around him grow stronger. He graduated from generating sparks from his fingertips to then manipulating them to eventually being able to temporarily take the lightning from the sky and make it a part of him, putting on shows for himself like he would have for his mom if she hadn’t gone. 

His dad went with him one time to see, and when Stiles turned back around his dad’s cheeks were streaked with tears. 

“She would have loved it; she loved everything about you so much. But still…you’re being careful? I don’t want you to stop, I could never ask you to stop what is a part of you, but-” 

“But we don’t know what other people would think. Or do. Don’t worry dad. I have got zero interest in being an X-Man. Wolverine’s kinda overrated anyway, and I don’t have the confidence to pull off at least half of Storm’s outfits.” 

Because that was the most important reason his parents had worked so hard to try and instill in him a sense of how, even though in certain ways he was the same as everyone else, in others he was so very, very, different. And the odds of him being welcomed with open arms by the world at large were not ones that any of the Stilinski clan had ever felt all that confident taking. 

But that was alright, Stiles was careful. And he wasn’t quite sure if it was just Beacon Hills, or everywhere in general, but most of the people around him were remarkably adept at being what he could only assume was willfully oblivious to everything around them. 

So while he had been a bit more wary the first few times he went to what he considered his hill in the woods to twist the lightning to his liking, he relaxed more and more as each visit went unnoticed, so that for the past few years whenever he went he was able to let himself sink completely into the electricity that coursed through his being without the slightest bit of concern, and then let it out to arc and slice through the sky, before pulling in what was naturally generated by an oncoming storm to feel like he was really a part of something. That for once he was really where he belonged. 

And it sucked that he was alone in it, because Scott, his dad, or even his mother when she was still with them, none of them could ever truly understand what it was like to have something so powerful and raw within his grasp all the time. Even from Scott he had to keep some secrets, and despite his parents knowing most everything… that didn’t mean they truly _knew._

So when he felt the tell tale tingle in the air that another storm was coming in he faked a stomach ache to get out of lacrosse practice, as Coach Finstock was not overly fond of his players vomiting before they even started running suicides, and went to his hill in the woods, careful to hide the anticipatory glow in his eyes until he was well away from any prying eyes. 

And then the lightning came. 

  


**_Caught_**

In retrospect Stiles decided that he might have become just a little bit too complacent with the idea that no one in town would find out about him based solely on his, until now, totally winning track record. But really, hubris aside, who the hell other than magically created clay and lightning individuals such as Stiles goes out for a jaunt in the woods when a storm was moving in? 

But apparently there was someone so inclined to risk electrocution, as one syllable spoken in a smooth sounding tenor jolted Stiles out of the trance like state he frequently entered when he gave up any attempts at holding back. 

“Hi.” 

The single word blasted through Stiles’ awareness like a bullet. He let the lightning go and spun around to see the one who finally caught him, who would now hold his life in their hands. 

And alright, while something as trivial as aesthetics should not be anything to focus on at a time when his whole world was potentially falling apart, it was pretty impossible for Stiles not to notice how stupidly attractive this guy looked. 

When he took in the interloper’s muscular and fit frame, shown to more than a small bit of an advantage in a tank top and shorts, he couldn’t help but gape. And looking at the jogger’s face didn’t help shake him out of his stupor much either, not when he was faced with eyes that couldn’t decide if they were hazel or straight up green, some very interesting eyebrows, and cheekbones that looked like they were carved from marble. Stiles was almost ready to laugh at the idea of being around someone else who was sculpted when that train of thought brought him back to the fact that he had been sloppy. 

He was caught. 

“Oh hell,” he said before turning tail and running away in the direction opposite where the jogger stood. It didn’t matter that the way he had gotten there wasn’t the direction he ran. He just had to get some distance, some semblance of safety again so he could _think._

After running for a few minutes he caught his foot on a raised root and stumbled, falling and ripping a giant hole in the knee of his jeans, and taking off a layer or two of the skin for his trouble as well. He stayed on the ground for a moment, trying to listen if anyone had followed him over the sound of the rain that had started at some point during his escape and his own harsh and ragged breaths. 

He got up gingerly and looked around, confirming that no one else was close, and started to walk back the way he had come. When he came to the spot where he had been ‘communing’ as it were, no one else was there. Whoever the jogger had been, he was long gone. 

Stiles began to trudge through the woods in the right direction now, trying to be optimistic about everything. If his mystery jogger hadn’t tried to follow him then maybe he hadn’t actually seen what Stiles had been doing. Maybe he thought Stiles had just been playing with some illegal fireworks and was afraid of getting in trouble, or even better, maybe he hadn’t seen anything at all and just wanted to be friendly to whomever else was as foolish as he was to be out and about when a storm was due. And they had only looked at each other for a few seconds, it wasn’t like Stiles’ face was so striking that the guy would even recognize him if they ever ran into each other again. Things were going to be fine. 

And if he hugged is father extra tight when he got home from his shift at the station later that night and lied about the reason why, that was just because he didn’t want to worry him over what was probably, most likely, almost definitely nothing. 

Just because he could picture the jogger’s face in excruciating detail before he went to bed, and the look of what could only be realization in his eyes, that didn’t mean that Mr. Jogging Eyebrows could do the same. 

Everything was totally fine. 

  


**_Watched_**

“Dude, are you feeling alright today?” Scott whispered, poking Stiles with his pencil after the third time Stiles got called out by the teacher for staring out the window. 

“Yeah, no, I’m…did you see someone out there? Like looking into the building?” Stiles asked quietly, his eyes darting over to the window before turning back to Scott. 

“Hey, I was taking notes, like you should be doing. You know that Finstock always makes up the tests directly from the notes,” Scott said with a pointed tap of his pen on a definitely note filled page. Stiles glanced down at his own open notebook that was bare except for one absently doodled curlicue. 

“Which is why so long as one of us takes them, it’s all good. But seriously, I keep on getting the feeling that someone is trying to be all covert and spy on me.” 

“Why would anyone want to spy on you?” 

Not for the first time Stiles wondered if he should just tell Scott, if he should have told him a long time ago. He knew Scott would never betray him but…once he got into the habit of keeping secrets, he found that it was a pretty hard one to break. 

“Who knows? I’m just a majestic and awe inspiring specimen of humanity?” Someone might have caught me using my super secret lighting powers that I have, because I wasn’t so much born as made out of clay? 

“You know I love you, but I kinda doubt it. Are you getting sick maybe? When I caught that bug last year I got really dehydrated and dizzy and kept on thinking I was seeing things out of the corner of my eye until my mom stowed me in an empty room at the hospital and put me on a saline drip to replace my fluids.” 

“Yeah, maybe,” Stiles responded distractedly, looking out the window once more to where he could have sworn he had seen the jogger from a few days ago, now wearing a leather jacket and jeans, staring not just at the building, but right to the window that Stiles was sitting by. 

But it still didn’t make any sense. If Mr. Jogging Eyebrows, and yes, Stiles was very aware that the name didn’t exactly flow, but it wasn’t like he had all that much to work with, _had_ actually seen Stiles do his thing and knew who he was… then why hadn’t he told anyone? If it was him why was he just standing around watching Stiles go to school instead of selling his story to a news channel, or some group of government guys in lab coats? 

The bell rang for classes to switch, jolting Stiles out of his reverie of growing confusion and paranoia. He raced to his next class, leaving a baffled Scott behind, and made sure to snag a seat that was tucked far enough in the corner so that once the rest of the class came in, it would be completely obscured from anyone looking in from the outside. Scott came in with the rest of the class, making a bee line for where Stiles was hunkered down. 

“Seriously, are you sure you’re alright? You’re acting really weird and paranoid,” said Scott, his voice filled with concern. 

“Paranoia is the delusion that your enemies are organized,” said Stiles, flipping open his notebook and clicking his pen open to signal that he was ready to get down to academic business. 

“You are being less than reassuring right now, you know that right?” 

“Don’t you worry about a thing Scott, everything’s cool,” Stiles said, hoping that his words came out as heartening rather than despondent as the teacher walked into the room and started the class. 

He took notes on autopilot, this time forcing himself to not even so much as glance in the direction of the way too excessive for his liking wall of windows. Instead he tried to make himself to calm down and to be reasonable. If something bad hadn’t happened by now it probably wouldn’t, if something bad hadn’t happened by now it probably wouldn’t… 

With that mantra running through his head, Stiles managed to more or less get through the rest of the school day alright. Lacrosse practice was canceled for the afternoon due to Finstock related reasons that in Stiles’ distracted state he had thankfully missed, and Scott had turned down his offer of a ride to bike to his job at Dr. Deaton’s clinic, so after the last bell Stiles walked to his jeep alone. 

There was a piece of paper crammed under his windshield wiper. 

With hands that were _not_ shaking in the slightest, because everything was _fine,_ Stiles picked up the note. 

_I didn’t mean to scare you before. I was just so glad to finally meet you._

_We’ll meet again soon._

It was signed, but the signature itself was completely illegible, having been the part that was actually pressed against the windshield wipers that Stiles distractedly figured he should apparently either clean or replace sometime sooner than later. 

So…Stiles didn’t think that remorseless government scientists would really be the type to leave notes on high school Junior’s cars, so there was that. 

Stiles folded up the note and stuffed it in his pocket before getting into his car and starting it up, eager to just go home. 

But as he pulled out of the parking lot he couldn’t help but wonder: what did the note mean when it said ‘ _finally meet you’_? 

  


**_Evasion_**

The rest of the week passed without any more notes or feelings of eyes on the back of his neck. But be that as it may, he hadn’t so much as allowed himself to do any of the normal little tricks he did in the privacy of his own home to calm down since the day in the woods. His mom and dad had encouraged him to create games with the lightning when he was technically only a few months old, both to encourage his creativity and prevent too much energy from being pent up inside him. And doing so also helped him learn the control to keep from giving unintentional shocks or bursting all of the light bulbs in the house when he was excited. He’d do things like creating a small spark to jump all over him like an incredibly energetic and bouncy inch worm, or rolling a ball of lightning across his fingers like David Bowie in Labyrinth. Stupid, silly little tricks, but they had always comforted and calmed him, like his own special kind of meditation. But right now, even in his room with the blinds completely shut, he just felt so…exposed. No one outside of his mom and dad had ever seen what Stiles really was, and now someone else had and _Stiles still did not know what to do._

His dad noticed Stiles’ distraction pretty quickly, but didn’t say anything right away. Stiles was pretty sure that he was trying to be all patient and non invasive, waiting for Stiles to come to him with whatever the problem was, but that approach kind of fell by the wayside when Stiles went to use the microwave, and a burst of electricity arced toward him once he got within two feet of it. 

“So is there anything on your mind? Something you’d like to talk about perhaps?” His dad asked drolly as he walked into the kitchen and took in the scorch marks on the microwave and the counter it sat on. “Or is this just your subtle way of saying you think we should renovate the kitchen?” 

“Well I’ve been watching a little HGTV lately, and things are starting to look a little dated in here…” said Stiles as he took a bite of his sadly still not reheated leftover pizza, before deciding that he should probably just make himself a sandwich. “Granite countertops are still big, but apparently the stainless steel look may be on the outs for appliances.” He got up and got a loaf of heart healthy whole wheat out of the breadbox, and hesitated only slightly when he reached to open up the refrigerator to get some cold cuts. “Just something to consider.” 

“I would possibly consider it if I had any intention of redoing the kitchen, or even if I honestly thought you did, for that matter. But I sincerely doubt watching one or two renovation shows really had all that much influence on you.” 

“They could have. Teenagers are very impressionable you know. We succumb to peer pressure like _that_ , even it’s from the TV. I’m pretty sure somebody from the Sheriff’s office even came to school one time to talk with us about it and how we should resist it even.” Stiles layered the cuts of meat onto the bread, wishing he had remembered to pick up tomatoes the last time he went shopping. “Also about Stranger Danger. I’d say those poor people with the Sheriff’s department are completely overworked.” His dad sat down at the table opposite of where Stiles was prepping his snack. 

“I won’t argue with you at that point, though I will say that I recall at least one of those school visits happened back when you were in the low single digits. Which, incidentally, is around the last time that you did anything like this purely by accident.” 

“I’m sure that that couldn’t have been the _very_ last time. I’m not proud of it, but I do recall a busted toaster or two since then on Mother’s Da- I know it’s happened,” Stiles said hunkering down to eat his sandwich. Ignoring a problem until it went away had yet to be a successful technique for him so far, but he was all about giving the method a fair shake. Especially if it meant avoiding telling his dad how badly he may have messed up. 

“Anything since then was when you were under…” his father paused to search for the right words. “Undue stress. When you’re upset and trying not to show it, well, other people might start to yell at people at the drop of a hat; you blow out light bulbs. I haven’t seen any of your light from underneath your door when I’ve walked past your room at all the past few days like I usually do, and even when you go out into a storm like I know you did a week or so ago, you still always end up needing to bleed off some excess electricity within a day or so after.” He taps his fingers on the tabletop, what should be a careless gesture coming across as very deliberate. Stiles chewed his sandwich, waiting for the inevitable question, still unsure if he would answer with the truth, knowing that it would almost wreck his dad with worry, or a lie, letting his dad remain unaware but forfeiting the only help he could get from anyone. 

“Stiles, did anything happen when you went out for that last storm?” 

“I saw a deer that must have been ripped apart by a predator or something. It was really torn open and sick looking, with everything just…everywhere. My mind can’t get rid of the image, and it’s left me feeling kinda freaked out.” 

‘So,’ Stiles thought as he took another bite of his sandwich to avoid seeing the skepticism on his dad’s face. ‘Lie it is then.’ 

  


**_Catalyst_**

More days went by since he decided he was on his own without anymore hints of even the existence of the still rather pathetically named Mr. Jogging Eyebrows. No mysterious figures either wearing jogging short or leather jackets showing up in the periphery of his vision. He started to toy with his electricity on a small scale again, if only to make sure he wouldn’t trash anymore appliances and worry his dad. 

He still made sure to always shut the blinds tight, and to turn on all the lights in his room to make his sparks less noticeable. But he was gradually letting himself start to, if not really outright relax, at least become less on edge compared to how he had been for the past week. 

Of course then something completely unrelated to him being a creature of myth and legend, or at least of an extremely unconventional origin, happened. 

Stiles wondered, for what felt like the thousandth time, why he and Scott even bothered to sign up for lacrosse anymore. Even if they were currently on the varsity team as befitted their current Junior status, it still didn’t mean they actually got any real time on the field at any point unless one decided to count practice, which Stiles definitely did not. Basically all it meant that they got all of the painful benefits of being checked and body tackled without even the _potential_ for glory that game time afforded. 

And when the Team Captain was having a bad day and apparently still carrying a teeny tiny bit of animosity against Stiles for trying to ask Lydia out when she and Jackson were on break the beginning of sophomore year? Then the pain was just gonna rain down, regardless of the fact that Stiles had finally realized he had to start letting his crush go when the royal couple got back together for the nth time. Whatever the endgame was for those two, he definitely was not going to factor into it in any way. But that didn’t change the fact that Jackson had a bit of a tendency to hold a grudge, so the fourth time he slammed into Stiles for a tackling drill he put a little extra ‘umpf’ into it, sending Stiles flying through the air, only to come back to earth with what he was sure was a sickening sounding thud and pop, landing on his left elbow. It was a little hard to hear anything over his agonized scream, but assuming the Foley guys in movies knew their stuff alright, he was pretty confident it sounded awful. 

He took in a shocky breath and opened eyes that had reflexively shut with pain to find half of the team and Coach Finstock circled around him. Finstock was trying to ask him if he was alright while simultaneously yelling into his cell phone that he needed an ambulance because he thought he saw bone. Meanwhile Scott’s expression was filled with concern when he was looking down at Stiles, until he looked up and saw Jackson, who was gaping like _he_ had been struck. _Then_ he looked like he was prepared to straight up murder Jackson. 

“What the hell did you do!?” Scott yelled, shoving at a pale and guilty looking Jackson. Stiles really wished he was in more of a position to savor that expression on his face, but the small issue of the insanely intense pain in his arm kept on distracting him. Completely unfair. 

“It was an accident!” Jackson blustered, shoving Scott back. 

“Like hell it was!” 

Stiles was seriously starting to feel like he was a damsel in distress and Scott was defending his honor when Finstock got off the phone and yanked Scott and Jackson apart. 

“You!” he shouted at Jackson, “Go wait in my office! And you, do you want to join him or stay out here with me and your friend to wait for the EMS, or do you want to enjoy the splendor of my workspace too? I think I lost a cheese sandwich in there a week ago so you two can go on a treasure hunt for it together! And everyone else go hit the showers!” he finished yelling to the rest of the gawking team to send them scattering 

“I’m staying out here with Stiles,” Scott said stubbornly as Jackson slunk off toward the school. Finstock nodded and walked off to the edge of the field by the parking lot to wait for the ambulance. 

“Hey man, you looked like you were ready to throw down. I felt very special. Like you were Prince Charming coming to the defense of the delicate wilting flower that is me.” 

“Oh god, shut up. If you were not already hurt I would punch you,” said Scott ducking his head with a laugh. 

“Like I said, Prince Charming. Hey, so is the bone actually showing like Coach said or…I really don’t even want to look.” 

“No, I think that was just Coach getting a little excited.” 

“Awesome. No protruding bones is awesome.” Stiles tried to readjust his position and gave up, sucking in a pained breath through his teeth. “So do you think I can request your mom to be my nurse? She’s never shy about breaking out the Batman Band-Aids.” 

“Today and tomorrow are her days off, but don’t worry. She scared off anyone who didn’t meet with her approval already.” 

“Ok,” said Stiles closing his eyes, “I shall broaden my horizons with a non McCall caretaker. It will be a valuable and enriching life experience.” 

“There you go,” said Scott as the sound of a vehicle pulling up next to the fence drifted over to them. “Think positive.” 

  


**_Meeting_**

Stiles turned down Scott’s offer to ride with him to the hospital. They had a test in chemistry the next day, and while it looked like Stiles would probably be missing it, that didn’t mean that Scott shouldn’t still go and take advantage of the flawless flashcards that Stiles had made. All Scott would be able to do anyway would be to try and find ways to kill time while Stiles got checked in and x-rayed and all that fun stuff that happened before he was allowed to get any jello. He hoped he could wrangle the red jello. Red always tasted the best, not matter what the flavor technically was. 

As a probable broken arm, with definitely no bone poking out despite Coach’s histrionics, thank god, he was a low priority and had been pretty much cooling his heels in the exam room he had been set up in, his arm stabilized by the EMS. He had been given an icepack, but sadly no painkillers until he met with the doctor. He reached over for the TV remote, wincing as he jostled his arm, and put on some cartoons as his arm continued to throb despite the ice. 

He was attempting to concentrate on the vampire rock star chick on the screen as much as possible to try and tune out the pain in his arm, when he heard what sounded like someone running through the hall, before stopping just short of the room Stiles was in. He tried to crane his head as best he could to peer into the hallway without actually moving but couldn’t see anything. He gave up looking and settled back as best he could, because he thought the cartoon was actually pretty fun and trippy, though he would have preferred to have changed the circumstances in which he was watching it. However, his cartoon appreciation time was interrupted when he heard another sound from the hallway, like someone taking a deep inhalation right outside his door. 

“Whatever,” he mumbled to himself as a new episode of the show started and an adorable animated penguin waddled across the screen. He was a couple minutes in when he noticed out of the corner of his eye someone in green nurses’ scrubs walk through the door. 

“Man, I was beginning to think that you guys had forgotten all about me,” he joked weakly as he turned to look at the nurse. “I should let you know, I totally have an ‘in’ with Nurse McCall, so she’ll know if you’re not nice…to…me…” he finished haltingly upon getting a real look at his nurse. 

So it was Nurse Jogging Eyebrows. That was a little unexpected. As was the fact that he wasn’t looking at Stiles like a freak, or a cash cow, or any of the other things Stiles was sure he would see on the face of anyone who found him out. Instead the nurse was wearing a wide smile that, rather than making him look like he had some nefarious purpose, made him resemble something much closer to a teenage girl meeting her favorite boy band member, and one who had just agreed to take her to prom to boot. 

But that could just mean that this guy was prone to weird facial expressions, and the possibility that he was here to…to do _something_ , Stiles didn’t even know what to think anymore, was still there. 

Also the guy seemed to be sniffing the room a lot as he walked over to look at Stiles’ chart. That was kinda weird too to say the least. 

“Are you really a nurse?” Stiles asked, desperately trying to get his bearings. 

“Of course I am,” Nurse Jogging Eyebrows said while raising one of said eyebrows, before unclipping his ID and revealing himself to in fact be one Nurse Derek Hale. 

It certainly flowed better if nothing else. 

“And I’m friends with Nurse McCall, but even if I weren’t, you would never have to worry about me doing anything that would hurt you.” And hoo boy, it was abundantly clear to Stiles that Derek was not talking about having to draw blood or give shots. 

Derek affixed the blood pressure cuff to Stiles’ good arm and jotted down the numbers after making a small approving sound. His smile was slightly more subdued than when he first walked in, but it was still very present as the man practically radiated joy while asking Stiles to confirm information on his intact form. It was all just so surreal that finally Stiles just blurted out: 

“Seriously, who _are_ you?! I come in with a broken arm and all of a sudden… _you!_ ” 

The smile grew wider once more, white teeth flashing. 

“My name is Derek, and I’m a nurse. Also, you don’t have a broken arm, you have a partially torn tendon in your triceps-” 

“You know what I mean, and how would you even know about my arm yet, I haven’t been x-rayed or anything-” 

“And I have been waiting so very, _very_ patiently for over ten years.” 

“What? What the hell are you talking about-”Stiles began before the doctor walked into the room and cheerfully took the chart from a still smiling Derek, who again seemed to take another significant sniff as he walked back past Stiles out into the hall as the doctor said something about sending Stiles down to x-ray. 

There wasn’t so much as a hairline fracture. The doctor then manipulated the arm a little to the _massive_ discomfort of Stiles, and said that it must be a torn tendon. He wrote up an prescription for some anti inflammatory medicine and a sling, told him to start with ice for a few more hours and then move onto applications of heat, and in a few days get in contact to make sure things were healed up enough to set up a physical therapy regime for him to start. 

He didn’t get a chance to see Derek again before his dad came to take him home, so that he could ask once more how he had known about his arm. 

Or why he said he would never hurt him. 

Or what he had meant by waiting for him. 

Really, Stiles had a whole mess of questions he needed to ask Nurse Derek Hale, and had no idea what any of the answers would be. 

  


**_Follow-through_**

Just because Stiles was out of lacrosse for the rest of the season didn’t mean that he was going to let his now abundant free time go to waste. On his first afternoon free of having to go to practice, he started looking up some more info on torn tendons in the arm, as the pain was something of a pressing matter for him. He was more than a little tickled to find out that in addition to the initial ice, and then heat therapy, electrical stimulation was often part of treatments as well. If that wasn’t in the wheelhouse of ‘what Stiles could totally do with great success on his own’, he didn’t know what was. 

So as he concentrated on sending small pulses of current to the torn and abused muscle, he searched with his good hand for any and all information he could find on one Derek Hale. 

It was all incredibly boring. 

Born in Beacon Hills, graduated from Beacon Hills High School, left Beacon Hills long enough to get a BS in Nursing, came _back_ to Beacon Hills, currently employed at Beacon Hills Hospital, current residence the same house he grew up in… _boring._

Even his Facebook page had nothing going on; he only had about fifty or so friends, and at least half of that number seemed to be either family members or his coworkers at the hospital. He also rarely posted anything, and even then only truly innocuous things like ‘happy birthday’, or ‘congratulations’, or if he was really in a deep and introspective mood, ‘A little girl gave me a princess sticker after I held her hand as she got stitches. Wore it all day.’ And alright, Stiles would admit that that sounded almost sickeningly adorable in the best way, but he really didn’t think it was a particularly vital piece of information pertinent to his current need of finding what the hell was up with this guy. 

It looked like he was out of any other alternatives but to go directly to the source if he wanted to find out any answers to his questions. 

Driving himself out to the woods wasn’t really an option with one arm out of commission when his baby was a stick shift. Sure, he used his uninjured arm for shifting, but that left him short one hand on the wheel, and the idea of no hands steering the car and possibly gaining some additional injuries added on to his tendon didn’t really appeal to him. He looked up the number to Beacon Hills’ taxi service online and called for a cab, figuring that if need be he could walk home by himself later. 

Or who knew, maybe an insanely attractive and also possibly just insane male nurse could give him a ride back. At this point it seemed just as likely as any other possible scenario he could think up. 

While waiting for the cab he put on his favorite red hoodie, the one with lots of pocket space, carefully easing the sleeve over his injured arm. He then went to his desk drawer and took out the small canister of pepper spray he had ‘liberated’ from his dad’s work. Not all of the potential scenarios he had run through involved friendly chats and a lift home. 

Soon enough the cab came to pick him up to take him to the Hale house way out in the woods. Stiles was pretty sure the driver thought he was on something, his nerves kicking in so much that he felt he was about to vibrate right out of the backseat. He was going to talk to the first person on earth outside of his parents who knew that he wasn’t normal. And that despite his panic at having been careless enough to be caught out at the last storm…Derek had apparently known for awhile. 

_Hi._

_I was just so glad to finally meet you._

_You would never have to worry about me doing anything that would hurt you._

_And I have been waiting so very, very, patiently for over ten years._

The taxi driver pulled up to the house in what felt like way too short of a time. He paid without saying a word, though making sure to leave a decent tip, before exiting the cab. 

He had started walking toward the house when the cabbie rolled down the window and called out, 

“Hey kid, do you need me to hang around?” 

Stiles felt momentarily gripped by panic, wanting to say yes, wanting to say screw it and just take him back home now. 

But then the image of Derek beaming at Stiles at the hospital suddenly came completely unbidden to the forefront of his mind. 

He had looked at Stiles like he was some sort of fantastic revelation. No one else had ever looked at him quite like that, not Scott, or his dad or even his mom before she…and he loved all of them more than anything else. 

But Derek had looked at Stiles like he had somehow managed to light up his entire world. 

“No, I’m good. Thanks for asking though,” Stiles said before turning and walking up the steps of the house to knock on the door. 

He vaguely registered the cab driving off as he reached the top step. He finished walking up to the door, knocked, and waited for some answers. 

  


**_Confrontation_**

Stiles sat on the porch swing, idly swinging back and forth, trying not to feel like a total idiot for not taking into account that there was the possibility that no one was home before he came. He was also working on clamping down on the nagging thought that waiting around, swinging on a stranger’s porch was kind of edging toward the creepy. Because it was not fair that he should feel like the creeper when he was the one politely waiting outside to meet someone instead of staking out the school and leaving messages on people’s cars and other crap like that. 

After about an hour of waiting, he was starting to lean toward just calling the whole thing a wash and walking home when a car came up the drive. He squinted to see who it was through the windshield and rolled down windows, and yup, it was Derek. Leaving was no longer an option. 

As for Derek, he did the same weird sniffing the air thing like he had done at the hospital, and suddenly swiveled his head to lock eyes with Stiles. He killed the engine and straight up _bounded_ out of the car toward Stiles, barely bothering to shut the door behind him. 

Stiles had to admit that though it was something of an unconventional look, Derek did make a leather jacket worn over scrubs work. 

“You’re here,” he said happily, the same dreamy teeny bopper expression he had first had at the hospital stealing over his face. 

“Yeah, well I’m pretty sure we have some things to discuss, don’t we?” Stiles asked, proud of how he managed to sound like he was totally cool with everything and not at all intimidated by the incredibly weird and handsome man who stood before him, potentially holding both his and his father’s lives in his hands. 

“We do, of course we do, I’ve been waiting, I’ve wanted to talk to you for-” 

“For over ten years, right?” Stiles interrupted, trying not to feel flattered by Derek’s almost painfully earnest enthusiasm over Stiles’ presence. 

“Yes. Yes and now you’re here and I can finally…” Derek trailed off, for the first time in Stiles’ brief acquaintance with him looking unsure on how to proceed. 

“Finally what?” 

“We should talk first before I… would you like to come inside? It’s getting dark and-” Derek began, reaching into his jacket pocket and fumbling for his house keys. 

“Sure,” Stiles said, cutting off what he was sure were going to be further justifications for him to go inside. “I’ve always wondered what interior design choices a stalker would make.” 

Derek missed the lock on his first attempt, shooting a look that was simultaneously both hurt and contrite back at Stiles. 

“Well, I’m saving on rent until I can buy my own place by living here so it’s all my mother’s design aesthetic. And…I’m sorry, about at your school. I didn’t mean to upset you, I was just so happy to have finally seen you. But I shouldn’t have done that. I never want you to feel unsafe around me.” 

Stiles slide his good hand over his head and sighed. “Then maybe you should tell me what the hell your deal is man.” He took another deep breath and squared his shoulders as best he could before walking in through the finally open front door. “You gonna be a bad host in addition to everything else or are you going to offer me a refreshing beverage?” 

That familiar bright and beaming stile returned to Derek’s face as he followed Stiles inside, shutting the door behind him. And Stiles knew he should really be focusing on the fact that he was now inside the house of someone he still didn’t know if he could even trust, instead of the fact that Derek’s smile was already starting to become familiar, and that he missed it a little when it was replaced by the look from before. But it was, and he did, and he was just going to squash those new developments down for the time being. 

“What would you like?” Derek asked before turning and walking through a doorway that Stiles assumed led to the kitchen. 

“Got any iced tea?” Stiles called back before settling down onto a couch encased in a floral pattern that was definitely of maternal choosing. 

“With lemon?” Derek asked over the sound of a refrigerator opening and closing. 

“Sounds good,” Stiles answered, idly picking at a loose thread along the seam of the couch’s arm. Soon enough Derek came back in, still in scrubs but having lost his leather jacket somewhere along the way, each hand holding a glass of iced tea with a lemon wedge stuck on the rim. He handed one to Stiles and sat down in an arm chair angled kitty corner to the couch. 

“Is it good?” he asked as Stiles gulped down a mouthful of tea. 

“Yeah, it’s real good. What brand is this?” 

“It’s a homemade blend.” 

“Oh. Well…it’s good.” 

“Thanks.” 

Derek took a sip from his own glass while Stiles took another swallow, before setting his glass down on a coaster with an image of a waxing crescent moon on it, and angling his body slightly so he was directly facing Derek. 

“And now you are going to start explaining what you exactly you _think_ you know, and what you meant by waiting for me for over ten years, ok Derek?” 

“Alright,” said Derek, setting his glass down on another coaster, this one with a waning crescent moon on it. 

“What I _know_ about you is that you are not human. And I know that because I’m not either.” 

  


**_Answers_**

Stiles’ blood had run cold instantly at Derek’s proclamation that he wasn’t human. He was pretty sure this was what people meant when they said they were paralyzed with fear, because he couldn’t move, he couldn’t _breathe,_ it was over, his life was all over. It was only after Derek lightly, cautiously touched his hand, a concerned look on his face, did he realize what else Derek had said. 

“I want you to know that before I tell you anything else, because I know…I know that it can be hard to trust. It can be a risk, it can be _dangerous._ So I’m telling you right off so you can just listen and understand without worrying that I would ever do anything with that information. Because now you have some leverage on me too.” 

“Mutually assured destruction,” Stiles said somewhat hollowly, still trying to wrap his head around not being the only not quite human game in town. 

“I suppose you could use that terminology, but I meant it when I said I would never hurt you. I think I would probably die to prevent anyone from doing something like that to you,” Derek said in a disturbingly nonchalant tone. 

“Wow, that’s, what…what the hell?! You don’t even know me and you’re saying you would die for me? That isn’t…people don’t _do_ that kind of thing!” 

“I do know you, in a fashion, at least. I may not know each and every one of your hobbies, or your favorite food or anything like that yet, but I do know you were created somehow from earth and electricity and that you embody them in a way that to me is simply…you’re lightning, beautiful, and bright and fierce. You can create art from what would kill someone else in an instant, you spark from within with life, with pure energy unlike anyone else. And you’re the earth, grounded and strong and everywhere without even intending to be, and if you ever truly went away it would be like the earth beneath my feet had suddenly vanished as well, I wouldn’t know what to do.” 

Derek sounded earnest as he spoke, so damn painfully earnest, that Stiles had to chase away the stray thought that he had fallen asleep researching him, and this was just a dream. Because while Stiles had his doubts and his low moments, he still felt he had a fairly healthy perception of himself overall, failures related to lack of living up to what he considered what should be his true potential aside. Nice enough looking, tries to be a decent person, pretty damn smart and great sense of humor despite what some less enlightened people would say. But no one would ever call him beautiful in a voice filled with what was, at the very least, flirting with being awe. Or that he was so essential to another person’s existence that they would be beyond lost without him. 

“Ok, that was very flattering and all, did you ever keep a poetry journal, because I’m blushing here-” 

“Were you intending that to be sarcastic? Because you actually are-” 

“ _But._ But all of that still doesn’t explain much of anything. If anything it potentially adds a handful of new questions to the equation. So we are going to backtrack and start going through things step by step. All this talk about knowing me, having known me for close to ten years…how did that happen, huh? Because I am completely confident that we never even saw each other before the storm.” 

“That is the first time we ever met, face to face, but I smelled you. For years your scent was there, comforting and wild and calling out to me constantly, but always out of reach. It clung to others, it colored other scents and tastes, it’s even permeated the air of the town now, and I-” Stiles held up a hand cutting Derek off. 

“Okay, so I just want to be sure I’m getting this right, because it sounds like you’re telling me I stink so much that I polluted the frigging air?” 

Derek furrowed his brow and tilted his head, searching for the right words. “Not polluted, just…changed. And it’s not like normal people can even tell. I don’t think the rest of my family even notice it as much as I do. And I like your smell.” He locked eyes with Stiles once again and smiled, another variation on his blinding smiles from before, if maybe slightly dreamier. “I _love_ the way you smell.” 

Stiles was very glad he had already polished off his iced tea, because if he had been drinking now he was pretty sure he would have either choked on it or spewed the beverage all over Derek’s face. 

“Again, you can’t just say things like that! Remotely close to that! Things involving certain key words starting with the letter ‘L’, when as far as I’m concerned, we still don’t even know each other!” 

Derek kept his gaze on Stiles, looking anything but reprimanded. “I know you don’t know much of anything about me yet, and I’m not expecting you to feel the same way right now. I’ve waited for nearly a decade, I can wait for another, or forever if that’s how long it takes for you to feel that you know me, that you can love me back. But I wanted you to know how I feel. Because I know enough about what makes up the core of you to know that I love you. I know that you saved my family without even meaning to, I know that you are meant for wonderful things, I-” 

“I saved your family?” asked Stiles quietly, because even amongst Derek’s sudden, to Stiles at least, obviously not to Derek, declarations of love that proclamation stood out. 

“There was a woman who would have killed us for what we are, and she tried to trick me, to seduce me when I was younger than you. And she was so good at it, she was so convincing, and I was so damn stupid…until a car drove by with your scent drifting out the windows, waking up my senses to recognize that she reeked of malice.” Derek eased himself out of the chair and knelt before Stiles, slowly, giving Stiles every chance to say ‘back off’ or to jerk away, raising his hand to gently touch his cheek. “You were the best thing to happen to me before I even saw your face.” 

“And what, once you did my dashing good looks finished the job?” Stiles joked, Derek’s hand a brand on his cheek, his hair beginning to stand on end with a charge right in front of Stiles’ eyes. Derek either didn’t notice or didn’t care. The look on his face, however, was definitely making Stiles to lean toward the ‘not caring’ option. 

“Pretty much,” Derek said serenely, smoothly rocking back on his heels and sliding his hand down Stiles’ face to his chin before letting it lose contact completely. Tiny sparks flew between Stiles’ skin and Derek’s fingertips. He apparently didn’t even register the slightest bit of pain, instead looking at the light with pure delight. “I mentioned that you’re beautiful, right?” 

“Possibly, in passing,” Stiles said, trying to keep his tone breezy. “Another question; if you’ve known about me for so long, had…an _interest_ in me for so long, why didn’t you try and find me before now, you know, if you could sniff me out? Were you shooting for when I turned eighteen but ended up shy by about seven months?” 

While Stiles spoke Derek had returned to his chair and was now leaning forward, his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. 

“My mom and your mother were friends of a sort. I’m pretty sure they combined your ‘mutually assured destruction’ descriptor with going out for coffee together. She promised that you would be left alone, and made me promise too, even though I knew as soon as I made it I would have to meet you one day anyway. Running into you before the storm actually wasn’t all that intentional on my part. I was already out jogging when I caught your scent and followed it because you were to close by to resist. But really, it was kismet,” Derek said, flashing yet another obscenely charming smile Stiles’ way. 

“Ok, one more question. For now, one more question for now, I retain the right to ask more at a later time.” 

“Alright.” 

“So we’ve established that I’m clay made flesh, which evidently means I _smell-_ ” 

“I told you it’s not a bad smell-” 

“But if you’re not human what _are_ you that you can tell what I am, can track me by scent?” 

“Oh,” Derek said, like it was obvious and there had been no need whatsoever to share with the class. “I’m a werewolf.” His eyes flashed electric blue. “That’s also how I could scent what your injury was.” 

Stiles looked at Derek, handsome and sincere, a werewolf wearing nurse’s scrubs, before letting his head fall back and rest on the top of the couch. 

“Of course you are.” 

  


**_Chance_**

It appeared that pseudo stalking people aside, Derek had enough social graces to allow Stiles some time to collect himself. Eventually Stiles felt that he had gotten himself sorted enough to get up and go after Derek who had removed himself to the same porch swing outside that Stiles had been waiting on earlier. Stiles sat down, though on the far end of the swing. 

“I just want to start off by saying I am honestly more than a little disappointed for not figuring out werewolf myself, what with the way you could not stop talking about how I smelled-” 

“Frankly I was a little surprised about that too. But in any case, it’s a good scent. Actually good can’t begin to describe it-” 

“It will have to do for now because I’m not sure how much more I can listen to you wax poetic about how I smell tonight.” Stiles planted his feet on the porch and pushed back, making the seat swing properly instead of just listing slightly with its passengers’ small movements. 

“This is a nice swing,” Stiles said absentmindedly, enjoying the comfortable swaying especially after feeling like his world view had just been used as a punching bag. 

“Thanks. My dad and I put it up when I was a kid.” 

The swing was beginning to lose momentum, before Derek stretched out and pushed them off again. 

“Are you ok with everything Stiles? I know you’re used to some degree of…magic, the supernatural, whatever, but I’m fairly sure I’m the first person you met who’s even remotely like you, and I obviously am not exactly impartial here, but if you have any more questions or anything, I’ll answer them the best that I can. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” 

“Dude, don’t give people an opening like that. What if I decided I wanted to ask if you ever wet the bed as a kid or what your masturbation habits are?” 

“According to my mother at least a handful of times up until I was four, always when my grandparents came to visit. And as for the second question I will say that in the past few weeks I’ve incorporated some new visuals when I-” 

“ _Cannot say that.”_

“A quick fun fact about werewolves: when one can hear and smell almost everything that people are doing around them, modesty gets left by the wayside very early in life. And being finally able to put a face and body, a very pleasing face and body from my perspective, with a person I’ve been thinking about in one capacity or another for years, it’s only natural that I’d think about you then, ” Derek reasoned. 

“Just because everyone does it, that doesn’t mean you say it to the person’s face. Sure certain redheaded goddesses, and, on occasion, Hawaiian goalies have crossed my mind at key times, but I’m not going to tell them. Part of society is pretending that we are not all constantly picturing each other naked,” Stiles shot back. 

“I don’t care about pretenses much,” Derek said giving the swing another push. “If you never come to care for me the way I do for you, or even if you never want to see me again after tonight I’ll respect whatever you decide, because when I say I would never let anyone hurt you, I include myself in that. But I want you to know where I stand.” 

“This is a lot to throw at a guy who can count the number of ‘real’ dates he’s gone on without having to take off his shoes.” 

“I understand.” Derek dragged his left hand through his hair before letting it fall onto the seat between him and Stiles, before turning to face him with a smile. “Though I got to say I’m glad that you’re dealing with the werewolf news well.” 

“Well hell, I’m almost like a high end, next gen golem, so who am I to cast aspersions against those more hirsute individuals?” Stiles asked with a small laugh. 

“Can I ask you something now?” asked Derek a little hesitantly, the smile fading from his face. 

“Sure, but I thought you knew everything about me?” 

“Not everything, just most of the important things…some of the important things at least.” 

“So… your question?” 

“Will you give me a chance? Whatever you say is what goes, but…it’d be good to know that I’m not trying to fight the ocean.” 

“No, just the earth and lightning.” Stiles reached his right hand out slowly toward Derek’s hand resting on the swing, stopping a few inches above it, letting the electricity jump from his hand to Derek’s. It wasn’t anything more than a static shock to a human, and apparently nothing but a tickle to a werewolf. Derek stared at the flashes, wonder in his eyes. 

“Do you think you could possibly refrain from lurking and admiring me from a distance? Because that is so far removed from anything even approaching appropriate behavior, but considering you _were_ raised by wolves I think I can let it slide this one time. But if you think you can do normal stuff…you don’t have any weird werewolf dating rituals do you?” Derek shook his head, his smile returning, teeth flashing white in the dim light. “Then I think I can give that chance to you.” 

  


**_Conclusions_**

Derek offered to drive him home soon after. Getting into the car was something of a production as Derek, having decided to go into high gear courteousness to make amends for his earlier actions, tried to open the car door for Stiles as the same time Stiles was reaching for it, jostling his injured arm. 

“Derek, I appreciate that you’re obviously going to put in the work in to charm me, as you have thoroughly convinced me I am worth it, but unless both of my arms are out of commission, I am going to have to put the kibosh on treating me like your prom date from the 1950’s,” Stiles hissed as his arm throbbed. “I can do more than create sparkles you know.” 

“Sorry,” said Derek. “Are you ok?” 

“Yeah, let’s just get going. My dad’s actually home tonight and I didn’t exactly leave a note saying that I was going to confront some nurse who saw me mess with lightning,” Stiles said as he opened the door and slid into the passenger seat before buckling his seatbelt. Derek mirrored his actions on the driver’s side and put the key in the ignition before he froze. 

“Your father. Your father the Sheriff.” 

“Yeah?” 

“I knew you were the Sheriff’s son, I mean, once I knew who you actually _were_ I knew, but-” Derek began as they started down the path to town. 

“Dude, he’s not going to shoot you or anything. We haven’t even really held hands yet, you apparently intend to court me as if you were a Victorian gentleman, and most importantly I know we can trust that around my birthday you’re not going to give me a gift certificate for pottery lessons so I can make myself a little brother.” 

“He doesn’t know that. It’s true, but he doesn’t know that,” Derek said, taking a curve a little tight before taking a deep breath and easing his grip on the wheel. 

“Well, he doesn’t need to know that you know yet, as long as I know that even though you know-” 

“That is not the way any sentence should be constructed Stiles.” Derek took another breath. “I’ll tell him about me. I think your mother must have known, but if she didn’t tell him I will.” 

“Derek…” Stiles looked over at Derek and saw a mask of determination on his face “I know it can be hard to trust; it can be dangerous,” Stiles said, parroting back Derek’s words from, god, less than two full hours ago. “So thank you.” 

“For you it’s worth it,” Derek said with a grin, turning onto Stiles’ street. “Besides, even if your dad did shoot me I’d be fine.” 

Stiles looked speculatively over at Derek as they pulled up to the curb out front of Stiles’ house, both the jeep and his dad’s cruiser taking up the spots in the driveway. “You really need to give me more of a rundown on your special lycanthrope powers outside of being able to smell me from a mile off,” Stiles said as Derek threw the car into park. 

“Once I talk to your dad and we’re sure that I won’t have to go through the hassle of digging out any bullets, we can figure out a good time for me to take you out to dinner. Or lunch. Or coffee, or breakfast, or whatever you want. And I’ll continue to make good on my promise of telling you whatever you want to know.” 

“Let’s go for brunch, it always seemed like such a classy meal, but one that allows you to sleep in,” Stiles suggested, already thinking of lox and eggs and maple syrup, with Derek looking at him like he was something magic over the top of his orange juice. 

Derek smiled and opened his door to exit, before Stiles, on a whim, awkwardly twisted to reach over with his right hand and gently touched the back of Derek’s hand, trying to hold back on the small charge that seemed to always want to leap over to Derek and only partly succeeding. Derek turned back to him, his eyes lit up blue to what Stiles knew was his gold. “You really like that, don’t you?” 

“I love it.” 

  


**_Future_**

_Stiles kissed Derek for the first time nearly six months after they first met face to face. He still couldn’t help but worry slightly at the little sparks that he felt crackling as their lips pressed and tongues entwined, or at the small tendrils of blue electricity that stretched between their two mouths when they separated._

_“Was that ok?” Stiles asked, leaning back slightly from the circle of Derek’s arms, light shining out of his eyes like a beacon._

_“It was everything I dreamed of. Everything I could ever want,” promised Derek, raising his hand to card it through Stiles’ now grown out and tufted hair, so soft beneath his fingertips, before slotting his mouth against his love, finally his love, to taste the sweet combination of Stiles and electricity once again._

**Author's Note:**

> So I hope y'all enjoyed it!
> 
> The creation of Stiles in this was loosely (very loosely) inspired by the golem of Prague, created by Rabbi Loew to protect the Jewish ghetto. It's always been one of my favorite stories, though of course Stiles is much, much more than the lumbering and violent creature from the myth. I pulled from other similar creation stories, and added my own elements, but this is what you get when I start the initial brainstorming around the high holidays :) In addition, the reference to Stiles being named after his late grandfather is an Ashkenazi tradition of being named after deceased relatives. 
> 
>  
> 
> I apparently just really like the idea of Stiles being Jewish, don't I? :)
> 
> On the issue of adoption, I don't know much about the adoption process first hand, just knowing that it is expensive and that some people do get turned down for reasons though they may be good parents overall. So I don't know if the Stilinskis would have been rejected in reality, but for the purposes of this story they needed to have no other options but to turn to magic, because in normal circumstances they, along with me, do not believe that shared blood is needed to make a loving family. 
> 
> So once again, hope you enjoyed it! Also, comments and constructive criticism is always appreciated.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Spark](https://archiveofourown.org/works/631472) by [tipitina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tipitina/pseuds/tipitina)




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